Latham overlooks one small point

Mark Latham in his opinion piece (“The joke that’s journalism", AFR December 6) proposes a case to justify the legalities of process in the creation of the so-called slush fund. Whatever the resulting belief of purpose created by the lawyer employed at Slater & Gordon with government agencies, he failed to address the beliefs of the numerous construction companies who paid out tens of thousands of dollars to this entity on the understanding it was a union-based agency, and that by paying that money they would ensure trouble-free progress from that union on the projects involved.

Latham’s arguments might best be tested by asking their accounts departments how they would have responded had the invoices received been headed “slush fund".